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There are always free slots, at least in A-E's case, even when many people want to download =)

I know a few other big fansub groups have mutiple bots which have 100 send slots.

That is the difference between a regular XDCC server, and mutiple Fast XDCC bots.

It only takes a few extra minute to find the bot with the free slots, and since they're all named AE|nick, it is quite easy.

No effort, no gain

I just took down one of my XDCC bots to seed Planetes 15 and UFO 9. BT is currently using 70% of the CPU and 320MB of RAM. Doing roughly 350KB/sec combined upload. I set each torrent to have 15 uploads each, and no upload speed CAP.

When I was using Iroffer XDCC, it was using 10% of CPU, 56MB of RAM, and doing 2MB/sec (~2000KB/sec) upload over only 15 dcc sends.

You can clearly see the difference now.

Wow... what BT client and on what OS do you run it on? I'm currently running 6 instances of BT clients that combine to use about 25% of CPU (400MHz PII) and about 40MB of RAM. At the same time about 800KB/sec is being pumped out (it could go even higher but my pipe is currently maxed out with other stuff).

The client I use is just a plain commandline (headless) BT client (v3.3) on a Red Hat Linux box.

It seems BT could be getting some unjustified bad rep simply because people use inefficient or poorly written clients. Dunno, just a thought...

Wow... what BT client and on what OS do you run it on? I'm currently running 6 instances of BT clients that combine to use about 25% of CPU (400MHz PII) and about 40MB of RAM. At the same time about 800KB/sec is being pumped out (it could go even higher but my pipe is currently maxed out with other stuff).

The client I use is just a plain commandline (headless) BT client (v3.3) on a Red Hat Linux box.

It seems BT could be getting some unjustified bad rep simply because people use inefficient or poorly written clients. Dunno, just a thought...

Yes, on a linux box =)

Most people do have windows boxes :P Does that Explain it?

Winblows 100%, if I could convince all my distros to install linux, I would.

Winblows 100%, if I could convince all my distros to install linux, I would.

But there are multiple different clients that run on Windows, so a choice in client could make a difference in performance (E.g. isn't Azureus written in Java? To me Java is synonymous with inefficiency)

If all else fails there is always Cygwin. Then it might be possible to use generic commandline client in Windows as well.

I guess I just wanted to chime in and point out that BT speed and efficiency may very well depend on user's choice of BT client (and when in doubt go with the orignal client )

hmm why do so many people keep insisting on using bt. It is clear that both xdcc and bt are effective ways of getting files out to people. But I have an impresion that many people here have not downloaded releases from xdcc bots. The question asked in this thread is which one is faster? not which one is more effective or better? xdcc bots is the clear winner as the fastest of the two. What are to cons of xdcc? for one, waiting for queue when the slots are all full. Second, wrong or accidental commands can get you banned from the channel. Third, good chance leechers wont help distribute the file.
Many xdcc bots allow resume and you can always use bt to finish it or check if the file is good I think everyone should give xdcc a try. It may be a bit hard to learn, but once you learn all the tricks to it everything becomes as easy as typing an email addy. It's nice to stop by a channel and chat while you download the file. Give it a try

Best distro method is fast XDCC bots for new releases, bt seeding with a few initial seeders at release time, and one or two archive bots with all old files so people can wait in a queue if they really need that random back episode IMO.

That way if people wanna go to the channel they can and if they don't they don't have to. A-E is just doing it to make people find their knew home.

Some channels do not have many bots, and do not have stuff (pack lists, etc) that make it easier for you to use bots. But they do have a BT link that is always in the same place. So In terms of convenience, BT is probably better for some channels, and equal for others. This is why I use BT all the time for some channels' releases, and IRC for others.

For speed, again it is channel dependant. Some channels do not have much IRC distro at all, so BT would be faster for them. You'd probably have to wait till someone downloads it from BT to serve it to you, or you may have to wait in line for hours. I find it very funny, though, when there are 3000 clients on a torrent when there are so many free send slots on XDCC bots.

Saying the BT protocol is better may be true generally, but not completely. With IROffer (the program that XDCC bots are ran on) everything can be done remotely. So, if you have a lot of bandwidth, but are never around, you can just run an XDCC bot for a channel. Then, distro heads can control your bandwidth while you aren't even on the computer. With BT seeding, you'd either have to be around, or you would have to setup a way to remotely seed the files. It'd probably involve a lot of FXP-ing, whereas you can send files from one bot to another with XDCC easily. Either way, iroffer is better for its remote access features. I know I shouldn't say this, but a lot of groups hack other computers to serve as XDCC bots. It is kind of like a common practice by now, but I don't think hacking for BT seeds is... I don't even know if it's possible.

Most groups do not release with one seeder (the encoder) anymore. It is slow, obviously. They either release the torrent to the fast, distro team first, or use a Bot / FTP / HTTP to get it to the seeders. The time this takes, is usually longer than setting up XDCC for releasing. (For my distro chan, anyway) Bots are usually a lot faster than seeders, so they can download the files faster. Unless you do not have the time to recruit people to run/acquire bots, or "hire" someone to be a distro head, XDCC is probably better here. Groups that do not really care about speed would probably go with the "encode finishes, encoder seeds, released!" releasing method.

In terms of difficulty of learning to use, IRC is harder, of course. Though I'm quite surprised at how many people have difficulty with BT installation... I figured out how to use BT in like 2 minutes. But, it is also not as hard as people say it is. Most of the people who say that probably gave up 1 minute after trying, anyway. There are many resources out there, like ronin's IRC guide. I also wrote one myself here, if you're interested. My IM contact info is on there as well, so I usually get at least one question every day. I've been getting them for a LONG time, though, (my guide's been around for ~1.5 years) so I'm used to them now. Don't be afraid to ask me if you don't understand something. I know the guide isn't completely dummy proof, so questions help me as well as you, because I know which areas I have to make more clear and so on. I'm actually working on a flash import of the guide right now, so it'd have pictures and stuff to make it easier to understand. I originally had it on a .html file ONLY so that people can download it easily on a tdcc on IRC, but since flash is also a one-file thing, I've decided to work on the flash import. (Learning flash at school right now)

Anyway, it is your choice on what you use to download. But I don't want to hear anyone complaining about IRC unless they've actually experienced it to the fullest. Complaining on how a channel does their releasing is just ridiculous. They can do what they want, however way they want it. If you want them to do it another way, you should just suggest it, and specify a valid reason.

Personally I like xdcc a whole lot better then bt. Yeah more seeds give a better dl speed but also there are alot of leechers getting it at the same time. Basically it some down to this on xdcc I get no less then 300 kb./sec on bt I get no more usually then 80 kb/sec. Which one do you think i'm gonna pick? Also the fact I may not chat in the other groups channels but if I see a conversation that interest me I can start talking with numerous people live and not wait on a message board. Also since I only stick to certain groups for releases after a few eps i'm usually chillen in the rooms and can see what exactly is going on and meet alot of people. Also on average only 20-30% of people ever keep there bt's going after a download.

Oh yes, another thing I forgot to mention. If you are the type that sits there staring at a torrent, waiting for it to finish SO YOU CAN CLOSE THE WINDOW IMMEDIATELY, stop using BT. If you're gonna leech, leech in a way that it will not affect others as much.

I dont know why everyone here is saying bt works so much better for them, have you even used xdcc ? I get 800k/s to 1 mb/s, and it usually takes 4 min to dl an episode thats 175 mb, whereas bt often takes quite a bit longer and uses ul. Plus an xdcc bot will always go at high speeds whereas a torrent will become virtually useless with few seeds after a few days/weeks.

I definitely have to agree that irc offers a chance for the fans to meet the subbers, whats the point of them just making torrents, sometimes its nice to go thank them once in a while.

it's not about how you download its about how a group uploads its releases. Nobody has the bandwidth to distribute 1 terabyte plus of data that torrents can achieve. The only way to do it is through XDCCs. XDCC's don't come from anywhere, it's not some dude running it from their home computer, most XDCC's are hacked govt or research computers with tons (and I mean tons) of bandwidth and speed. If you got an XDCC great but for those groups that don't have it, Bittorrent is the best way to release their files without resorting to other filesharing apps like edonkey, kazaa, winmx etc.

I dont know why everyone here is saying bt works so much better for them, have you even used xdcc ? I get 800k/s to 1 mb/s, and it usually takes 4 min to dl an episode thats 175 mb, whereas bt often takes quite a bit longer and uses ul.

Hey, if everyone who downloaded with BT used XDCC, do you think it would go as fast?

[ old man voice ] Back in my day [ /old man voice ] we had to use third or fourth generation VHS to see fansubs. It was pretty neat, you had to know the guy behind the guy, behind the guy...etc. That being said, it's the subbers prerogative.

But I will say this. I downloaded my first fansub from an XDCC bot last night. I kinda had fun. I'm not an IRC noob. I am an IRC "I forgot everything." About 8 years ago, I learned IRC on BitchX while wasting time running tech support at a local ISP by my college. That was a blast. XDCC was your friend. I don't even remember having fserve's back then. Our sysadmins were major contributors to eggdrop, and the like, and even contributed to BitchX's code base.

Sure it took me longer to figure out how to get the file, but it came back to me. And now the clients are all, right click here to send/receive, it's even easier.

You're always going to have people that want the easy way out, like the automatic transmission. And sure in heavytraffic that's great, it's easy and you don't have to think about it. But I personally prefer the stick shift, where you have to work and think and pay attention to the road you travel on.

There's a place for both, but ultimately it again comes to the choice of the group. I had a good time in A-E's new channel last night, even talked about the episode I was downloading. And yeah 1 AM EST I was swearing and cursing cause I couldn't figure my client out (X-Chat), but we made up and it's all good now. Even got a little help from some nice folks in there. I think it was a good idea to release that way to promote the channel. Like a get to know your fansubber night.

p.s.: All that time I spent on IRC went away pretty quickly when a few choice people/channels decided to get mean and shitty with me. It doesn't take much, and the general mood of the channel can sour even the most die hard fan. Someone above said that channels were mean, and they're not all that way, but a few can be.

...most XDCC's are hacked govt or research computers with tons (and I mean tons) of bandwidth and speed.

Newsgroups are also good but many people don't have access to one.

Didn't see this mentioned before in the thread. I was thinking the same thing but didn't want to jump out first. BT is "nice" in that whatever BW you are using up to get the file out is voluntarily contributed.

Newsgroups also benefit from the popularity of BT. At one point groups were slamming competing releases onto usenet as fast as they could. This was kind of annoying depending on how many times the same episodes were posted. Sometimes identical files (same group, same everything) were posted on the same day >< Stuff like that still happens but not to the same extent. It's too bad that many ISPs gave up on providing in-house usenet service, but that's old news...

Some people forget that many university network admins block the ports to BT so IRC is the only practical way for us to get fansubs. It is just too much to wait 30+ hours to get a single episode and god help me if I have multiple torrents going.. I use XDCC and share by running my own fserv..

Everyone talks about how xdcc is faster... but does it really matter? I mean does everyone just sit at their pc all day waiting for new releases, then go download it as fast as possible, and sit staring at the download so they can start playing it the second it finishes downloading?
I've been an mirc user for years, but since BT has been around I haven't touched file servers unless I absolutely had to. I usually download an episode from a bittorrent in about 30 minutes. Maybe I could download from an xdcc in about 15 minutes these days, but I could care less because I probably wouldnt watch the episode for a few days anyway. What BT offers is convenience. I have a list of releases, I just click the one I want, and sit back and forget about it. If I want something from IRC, I first have to know what server the group is on, figure out the channel, type the commands into irc, get a list of the fileservers, then finally tell it to get the file and leave the channel/server. Basically, it's just more work, for no reason.

There is a Slightly easier way to use mIRC xdcc bots. Goto http://www.ircspy.com and just type in the search what you're looking for. It'll list all the bots available and you just click one cntl + v *just right click and paste the command has been already pre copied* in the channel window and your good to go. This site does not list everything out there. It still doesnt beat going to the channel and actually looking up the bots, but if the bots have been listed it does help. Also since all the anime groups on IRC are still kinda messed up im not sure how much stuff you'll be able to find.